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TWO INDIAN DOCUMENTS.

EDITED, BY

ALBERT S.'^GATSCHET.

.W4> Of 2-

Reprinted from American Antiquarian, September, 1S91.

TWO INDIAN DOCUMENTS.
Edited by Albert S, Gatschet.

I. MIGRATION OF THE WICHITA INDIANS.

f At a council of the Wichita people, held on the Washita \
River, May 19, 1885, Chief Niastor, of the Tawakoni Indians,
made the following statements :

When the Wichita Indians lived on the Arkansas River other
Indians crowded upon them from the north and east, and, after
a fight, drove them southward. The chief of the Wichitas at
that time was Todekitsadie. He said that for times immemorial
his people had lived in the same country, and was driven from
it only through the onset of the Indians above mentioned. In
a council it was decided to send a party of explorers to look out
for a new tract to settle upon. The selected party went south-
west, and when it struck the Wichita mountains the surrounding
country pleased them so that they decided to report in favor of
going there. After their return a council was called, and the party
of explorers pleaded for emigration to that portion of land. The
removal was decided upon, and as horses were then unknown,
the whole people, which was then very numerous, had to walk
the distance on foot. Arriving from their villages upon the
Arkansas River at the banks of the North Canadian River, they
followed it up stream and arrived at the bend of the river, at the
Red Sand Hills, There they stopped, built lodges and sowed
their corn. From this location a part of the Wichitas were
called Tawakoni, for this Wichita word signifies " river bend
among red or sand hills". Having lived there several years
they felt a desire to remove, and led by Todekitsadie they started
for the Wichita mountains, supposing that the soil there was
better adapted for raising Indian corn. After the Wichitas had
settled there Todekitsadie died. Niastor also made the addi-
tional statement, obtained from his mother, that after leaving
the Red Sand Hills on the Canadian River they did not travel
directly to the Wichita mountains, but remamed a few years
north of the (False) Washita River, set up farms near the mouth
of Sugar Creek (north of Anadarko), and were forced from there
only through a general inundation, which flooded all the lands
around the Washita, of which Sugar Creek is a tributary, join-
ing it from the north near the agency buildings ( They then \
fled to the Wichita mountains, and this occurred in the time of '■

250 THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN.

! Niastor's grandfather. Niastor was born there in 1837, near
I Mount Scott, and his mother was also born in the Wichita
I mountains, but the earlier emigration of the people from the
! Arkansas River took place at the time of his great-grandfather.
The tract where their villages then stood was in the neighbor-
hood of Wichita City, Sedgwick County, Southern Kansas, and
flint-heads, with pottery, are now found at their former settle-
ments. ] To this abstract of the tradition I add the deposition
made by Niastor in its original terms, since many points are
made more clear by it. I have received this document through
the kindness of Mr. H. Kuhn, clerk of the Comanche, Kiowa
and Wichita Agency, under date of August 23, 1885.

At a council of the Wichitas, May 19, 1885, Niastor, chief of
the Tawakonie, said: " My mother told me that her father said
she was born on the Arkansas River, below where the town of.
Wichita now is, and where there were holes in the ground in
which could be found flint heads for arrows and also pottery,
near where the Osage country now is. My great-grandfather
told my mother that when the Wichitas lived on the Arkansas
River the Indians from the north and east crowded and fought
them, and drove them this way ; that at that time To-de-kits-a-die
(meaning "Boy chief") was the chief of the Wichitas. He told
my mother that our people had always lived there, but after the
Indians fought them our people held a council and concluded to
move away from there. Some of our people were selected to
go and look out for a country. The party selected went south-
west until they saw the mountains now called Wichita mountains,
and liked the country very much. They returned to the village
and then our chief men called a council and heard what the
returned party said about the land they had seen, that it pleased
them, and that they wanted all of our people to go there. At
that time there were a great many Wichitas, and our people had
never seen any horses (there were none in the country), and
when our people left their villages on the Arkansas River to go
south, they all had to walk. When they arrived at the North
Canadian, they traveled up that river till they came to the Red
Sand Hills in the bend of the river, where they made villages
and raised corn. It was there that some of our people were first
called "To-wa-co-nies," because they lived in sand hills in the
bend of the river. To-wa-co-nie is a Wichita Indian word
meaning "bend in the river among red hills or sand hill". Our
people, after living there some years raising corn, got tired, and
the "Boy chief" (To-de-kits-a-die) told them that they would all
go to the Wichita mountains, which was a better country for
raising corn. To-de-kits-a-die died after our people had settled
in the Wichita mountains."

"I forgot to tell you that my mother told me when the Wichitas
moved from the Red Hills on the Canadian River, they remained

TWO INDIAN DOCUMENTS. 251

for some years north of the Washita River, and made farms near
the mouth of Sugar Creek, and while they Hved on the Washita
there was a big freshet which covered all the bottoms and flooded
the whole country, after.which our people moved to the Wichita
mountains. This was during the life-time of my grandfather,
and my mother was born in the Wichita mountains. I am now
forty-eight years old, and was born near Mount Scott. My
mother was very old when she died, thirteen years ago. She
was much older than Es-quit-cho is now."

"The Wichitas a long time ago were called Pawnee Picques,
but our people did not call themselves by that name, and I do
not know why we were called by that name."

Ni-AS-TOR, his X viark.
Witness: Chief of the Towaconie."

(Signed) E. B. Townsend.

For a better understanding of the relations among the Pani
tribes in the Indian Territory, it will be well to consider that the
name Wichita represents a tribe as well as a clan of that tribe.
The Wichita tribe had the following seven clans, as ascertained
by Rev. Owen J. Dorsey, in 1881, from a Tawakoni man called
Na-ashtuwi, who is probably identical with our Niastor:

i.Witchita. 2. Towakarehu. 3. We-eko (Weko, Waco, Hueco).
4. Akwetch. 5. Sidahetch. 6. Kishkat. 7. Kiri-eshkitsu.

Here the difficulty is to find out whether these names repre-
sent originally different tribes who became the allies of the
Wichita, or totemic gentes, into which the main stock of the
Wichita had gradually diverged. The language of the Towa-
karehu or Towakoni is about identical with that of the Wichita,
but that of the Weko shows more disparity.

The name by which the Wichita originally called themselves
was Tawayash, Tawaihash ; also spelled Towiache, Towache,
Toayas, Toweeash. Their present appellation, Wichita, which
they apply to themselves, is thought to be of Osage origin, and
to mean "migrating," "removing".

The other name as mentioned by Niastor is French and should
read Pawnees piques (not Picques), that is, the tattoed Pawnees.
Another appellation— Pawnee Picts — smacks of book-learning,
for it is taken from the Scotch tribe of the Picti or " tattoed," so
called by a Latin term at the time of the Romans. The third
name mentioned by Niastor as applied to the Wichita Indians,
Kitikades or " Painted Eyelids," as he renders it, is the name
given to them by the Pawnees proper, and is pronounced Kiri-
kurus or Kidikurus.

James H. Deer, a Caddo interpreter consulted by me in 1886
during his presence in Washington, D. C, agreed with the state-
ment given above, that Wichita was an Osage term signifying
" movmg about," and as to the name of Tawakoni he heard

252 THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN.

from the Wichita that it belonged to their language and signified
"sand hill bend". The Wacos.another cognate tribe, now count
only seventy people, and their name means " migrating" in
Wichita, by which, he said, their travels or raids into Mexico
are referred to. The Red Sand Hills above mentioned are now
known as the Red Hills, and lie on the banks of the North Cana-
dian within the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Reservation, ten miles
above Darlington, Indian Territory.

The remnants of all these tribes have been gathered for the
last twenty years or more in the Indian Territory, north of the
Washita River, and in 1889 showed the following population:
Wichita Indians 176, Tawakoni 145, Waco 64, Kichai 63, Caddo
539; total 987.

II. REMOVAL OF THE TAENSA INDIANS.
M. d'aBBADIE a la NLLE ORLEANS LE 10 AVRIL 1 764.*

"Z^ village des Taensas des environs de la Mobile, qui devoit
passer dans la Riviere rouge avec les Apalaches et celui des
Pakanas des Alibamons sont venus me trouver. Et m'ont
demande d'aller s'etablir sur la Rive droite du fleuve a la Fourche
des Chetimachas distante de jo lieiies environ de la Nouvelle Or-
leans. Je n'ai pu leur refuser cette grace et je me suis prete
d'autant plus volontiers a leurs etablissement dans cette partie
que J'y vois des avantages sensibles pour la colonic. Ces deux
villages sont Composes de pres de 200 personnes les Taensas
sont Chasseurs et Cultivateurs etseront d'une bonne ressource a
la Nouvelle Orleans. — Les Pakanas Alibamous nous procureront
bien la meme ressource, mais un avantage plus reel ce serait de
les opposer aux Tchaktas si ceux ci vo;<laient tenter quelques
incursions sur nos possessions. lis en sont naturellement ennemis
et les Tchaktas les craignent."

Upon inquiries made by me about the documentary evidence
concerning the ultimate fate of the Taensa people after leaving
the hospitable shores of Mobile Bay and Alabama River, I received
from Mr. Pierre Margry, who is editing the colonial documents
concerning French North America preserved at the "Ministere
de la Marine," the above piece, with its defective punctuation,
the contents of which he will probably embody in the next
volume of his " Decouvertes et Etablissements des Fran9ais," in
course of publication in Paris since 1880. The translation is as
follows:

♦From a package marked "Correspondance generale, Louisiane," Volume XIV
Preserved in the archives of the Ministry of the Marine, Paris.

TWO INDIAN DOCUMENTS. 253

"MR. d'aBBADIE AT NEW ORLEANS) APRIL 10, 1 764.

"The village of the Taensas in the vicinity of Mobile, the in-
mates of which had to pass over to the Red River with the
Apalaches and the Pakanas-Alibamons, have called upon me to
ask permission for settling upon the right-hand bank of the
(Mississippi) river at the Shetimasha fork, which is distant from
New Orleans about thirty leagues, I could not refuse to accede
to their demand, and have countenanced their project to settle
at that spot, so much more willingly as I consider it of advantage
to the colony. The two villages comprehend nearly 200 per-
sons. The Taensas are hunters and tillers of the soil, and will be
of great support to the City of New Orleans; whereas the
Pakanas-Alibamons will furnish the same help to us, though a
more real advantage to us would be to oppose them to the
Chactas, should they attempt to make forays on our possessions.
They are their natural enemies, and the Chactaws are afraid of
them."

In the March number, 1885, of The American Antiquarian
Dr. D. G. Brinton has revoked in doubt the authenticity of the
Taensa " Grammar" and " Popular Songs," published three years
before by Messrs. Maisonneuve & Co., Paris. To arrive at this
end he asserts that the Taensa people, after leaving their old
home between Vicksburg and Natchez, on the west side of the
Mississippi River, they remained for ten or twelve years upon a
temporary cession of land,* and a while after this disappeared
entirely, so that in 1740, or thereabouts, certainly not one Taensa
remained in existence. All this is based on an entire misconcep-
tion of the historic facts. The Northern Taensas, after having fled
down the Mississippi River from the fury of the Chicasa Indians,
were by ihe French authorities finally settled on the western
site of Mobile Bay, below P'ort St. Louis, and thirty miles above
Fort Conde (now the site of Mobile City, Alabama). This same
people was now called the Southern Taensa ; it continued to
exist long after 1740, for by the present document of iy6^ it is
proved [that its population, joined to that of the Pakanas, was
two hundred souls. In Louisiana, they reappear in 1805 upon
the Red River, and in Rev. Schermcrhorn's Report of 1812 in
the same tracts. Since the arguments of Dr. Brinton against the
authenticity of the Taensa language^ and especially against the
songs of 1827 are largely based upon the alleged early disap-
pearance of the whole tribe, we may gather from this how shaky
the whole of his "discovery" really is, although he is still harp-
ing on it, whenever any opportunity presents itself

After peace had been concluded between France and Great
Britain and the French lands had been ceded to the English,

♦They lived from 1706 to 1714 upon the Demeuve farm, on the Mississippi River,
where the French commander had placed them.

254 THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN.

the tribes dwelling south of the Ohio River held a meeting at
Mobile, in the spring of 1764, to decide upon the new course to
be pursued against the now all-absorbing power. The following
tribes resolved to expatriate themselves rather than to abandon
their old friends, the French colonists, and followed them to the
west of the Mississippi River: the six lower towns oi the Chacta,
the Taensas, Biloxis, Pascagoulas and a portion of the Alibamus.

Very little is known in history about the Pakanas, who figure
here as a part of the Alibamus. Their name is Chacta, and they
are perhaps identical with the Nanipakna, once at the mouth of
the Alabama River. Their name signifies the "upper ones," oe
" those above". During the nineteenth century Pakanas arr
mentioned in Louisiana, west of Middle Sabine River.

The spot on the Mississippi River where the two tribes wished
to settle, is the point near Donaldsonville, where the great river
sends a portion of its waters to the gulf by the Bayou Lafourche.
It is a place of importance in Indian and colonial history, and
the eastern part of the Shetimasha people formerly held this
bayou in its entire length.

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